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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193777">hold me in the silence.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash'>MostlyFandomTrash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, I'm Sorry, M/M, Regulus Black-centric, Unhappy Ending, they don't deserve this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:02:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,279</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>when regulus black is eighteen years and five months old, he drinks a cauldron filled with poison with all intentions of taking his last breath.</p><p>/</p><p>or; regulus black, and all of the noise.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Regulus Black &amp; Sirius Black, Regulus Black/Evan Rosier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hold me in the silence.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>words broken</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>flame ' s burning out</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>my arms open</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>i ' m reaching out</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            number thirteen grimmauld place is not a quiet house. it has not been a quiet place since regulus black was a child and his brother wasn't quite as disobedient as he was now. number thirteen grimmauld place is not a quiet house ; he doesn't think it ever got the chance to be.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            he presses his forehead against the cool, dark wood of his bedroom door ; his mother's shrill voice rings in his ears even now, even hours after she has finished screaming at him for something that he no longer remembers doing. he's not even sure he has the ability to speak right now, so he couldn't tell you how he remains standing. pure spite, maybe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black is nothing if not spiteful : it is, quite possibly, one of the only things he inherited from his mother. he turns around and leans back against the door ; his feet slip forward and he finds himself on the floor before he can blink, his breaths are slowed. he's tired, but he's always tired these days -- there's nothing and no one around to keep him from the brunt of his mother's wrath ; his brother left him and his father died and he is the only other breathing thing in the whole house (</span>
  <span>besides a house elf that his mother rarely acknowledges</span>
  <span>) for her to destroy -- and he thinks that he might still be feeling the crucio she cast running up nervous system like flames igniting over gasoline. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>            but, regulus black is also nothing if not a coward ; he is his father's son, after all. he knows that he will never have the courage or the ability or the willpower to stand up to his mother. he knows that, for all intents and purposes, the only reason he was born was to be a spare -- a fail - safe, in case the first son went wrong ( sirius didn't go wrong, he knows, the only thing sirius did was </span>
  <em>
    <span>get out</span>
  </em>
  <span> ) -- and he knows that his mother has not killed him yet, has not burned his face off of the tapestry in the foyer and every other goddamn thing in this house ( it is not a home, not anymore, and he has his doubts that it was ever a home to begin with ) is because she needs an heir.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black is fifteen and spiteful and cowardly and he knows, without a doubt, that he will never have the opportunity to escape his house -- his house, that has never known quiet and will likely never. he lost that chance the moment his brother stepped into green flames and left him alone with a screaming, spiteful woman of a mother and the coward that their father has become over the years. he knows that, and he accepts it, because it will never change.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>every tear and every smile is safe</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>both falling</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>no gravity</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>high walls and lost sanity</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry is not a quiet place ; it is loud and mesmerizing and wonderful and everything that he wants to bottle up and take with him when he goes. it has never been a quiet place, from what he can tell, and he hopes to every god he can think of that it will never have to be.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black tilts his head back and closes his eyes, listening to the sounds of the slytherin common room while he takes a minute to relish in the fact that he's back at school -- anywhere is better than locked in his room, he thinks, and it's true. he feels a weight shift next to him and cracks open his eyes to find evan rosier sitting next to him with hair more messy than he's ever seen it and half a grin on his face. he ignores the pounding of his heart at the sight, and smiles back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            " you seem happy, " evan says, and he can't find it in himself to disagree ; he </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> happy, happy that he doesn't constantly have to think of a million ways to hide away inside his own skin, happy that he can spend time with someone who likes him without caring about everything he has or doesn't. regulus nods and says, " come on, let's go to breakfast. "</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>            regulus black passes his brother on the way to the quidditch pitch and does his best not to stumble over his own feet when he rushes to get away as quick as he can. he ignores sirius calling his name and slams the door to the locker room shut with enough force to rattle the trophy case on the other end of the room. he looks up to find emma vanity staring at him with her eyebrows raised, half a question on her lips before he shakes his head, she just smiles. he walks past her to get changed for practice and doesn't find that he has the energy to think about anything after that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            he catches the practice snitch in the first ten minutes of the hour, the glint of sunlight against the gold bright to silver eyes that were used to the dark stones of the dungeons. he tilts his head back to the clouds, the snitch's parchment - thin wings beating frantically against the sides of his hand until his grip loosens enough for it to dart away. when he gets back on the ground, he finds emma vanity looking at him some sort of way and watches her shake her head. " go get changed, black. i think you're done for the day. "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            he doesn't have the words to protest.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>but every tear and every smile is safe</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            when he is fifteen, regulus black watches his best friend fall off of a jinxed quidditch broom and break his wrist. he doesn't let evan live it down for three weeks, and they're sitting in the astronomy tower with a half full bottle of firewhiskey at one in the morning when the brown - eyed - boy finally tells him to shut up and means it. he stops for all of five seconds before he leans forward and says with a sort of confidence that he doesn't really have, " make me. "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            and he watches evan's eyebrows shoot up and almost laughs the words off like he's kidding but then there's warm lips against his own and his mind has to reboot before he knows what to do with his hands -- he settles for bracing them against the stone floor to keep himself upright when evan breaks away for half a second to dart his eyes over regulus' face, searching there for something that he seems to find, and leans over to kiss him again. they head back to the dungeons only when the stars in the sky start fading into the sunrise, but they only make it to the common room before they dissolve into a fit of breathless laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            he kisses evan again in the dark of the corridor that leads the dorms and almost laughs aloud when evan kisses him back.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>if you hold me in the silence</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>nobody can find us</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>let ' s decide to stay , we should ride the wave for now</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>just hold me in the silence</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            he's sixteen when a bludger knocks him off his broom thirty feet in the air during the middle of a game against hufflepuff and he's lucky that he doesn't break more than his arm. regulus black comes to in the hospital wing with his arm on fire and his older brother with his feet propped up on the bed. he makes what might be a noise of pain or one of confusion, but sirius looks up and grins softly at him and for a moment he feels like he's ten years old again waking up in sirius' bed after their mother's had particularly too much to drink. " you look like shit, reggie. "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus can not help the startled laugh that bursts out of him, but then he winces and it's not quite as funny anymore. he looks from his older brother to the open doorway of the infirmary and back again, and says, fondly, in a voice that's the sort of scratchy you get when you haven't spoken in hours, " you're one to talk, you mutt. " and sirius laughs at him, the sound filling every corner of the room and he finds himself shutting his eyes to just listen to the noise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            sirius seems to take this as a request to leave, and regulus almost opens his eyes again to tell him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>stay, please</span>
  </em>
  <span> like he used to, but he feels his brother's lips graze his forehead and hears a muttered - under - breath </span>
  <em>
    <span>dumb snake</span>
  </em>
  <span> and has to fight to keep himself still until his brother is out of the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            and then, he laughs until the pain in his arm fades to a dull numbness and finds that the heart in his chest is a lot heavier than it was when he'd woken up this morning.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>nobody can find us</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>we don ' t have to go , we should mend our souls right now</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>here in the silence</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            he finds out that, despite his original beliefs, the gryffindor common room isn't always loud. sometimes, the only sounds are the occasional flipping of textbook pages and the barely there conversations of seventh years cramming last minute for their newts ; sometimes, the only sounds that he can hear are the half - raised voices of his brother and james potter as they argue back and forth over stupid things the way that only brothers who didn't grow up trying to save each other from fates they shouldn't have had in the first place can. he tries his hardest not to be bitter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            sometimes, regulus finds that the only sound is of his brother's voice, so late at night ( or so early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it ) that he is delirious without rest and they two of them laugh at the dumbest things. he likes these kids of sometimes best, when he can feel for a moment like they are just kids again -- which, really, they are, even if they had never gotten a real chance to enjoy it -- and he can enjoy the way his brother's voice doesn't break on every other word, like it used to. he likes watching sirius lean forward in the middle of telling him a story and the way his silver - grey eyes gleam whenever he laughs, because it is so rare that he gets to see him at all, anymore.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>lost chances</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>no afterglow</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>strong fences</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>won ' t let you go</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            when he is bored during the holidays, he watches the portraits on the wall. unfortunately for him : he is bored most days. the one he keep an eye on the most is the one of his father that hangs in the hallway near his study, the one where regulus can look into eyes that shine silver the way his own do and think about everything the man looking down at him ( he's sitting on the floor, leaning back against the opposite wall and looking up, his long legs sprawled out across the rug -- if his mother were to come upstairs and see this, he likely wouldn't have the energy to wake up until a few days from now, but his mother is not home ) had never done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus thinks about all the nights he watched his father go up the winding staircase in the back of the library to the very top of the black family astronomy tower and come down the next day smelling of bourbon because he thought that was the best solution to not hear his sons' echoing screams -- not to stop his wife from hurting the boys in the first place, no, but to drink until he could no longer hear it when they cried. he thinks about his father, standing in the doorway of the library when sirius got his hogwarts letter, arms crossed and voice low when he asks what sirius has got that he’s so excited about ; he thinks about his father, asking him in a quiet sort of angry voice that he rarely heard from the man, </span>
  <em>
    <span>what do you think you're doing, boy? </span>
  </em>
  <span>when he doesn't quite know the answer himself : and he thinks of his father, fallen forward against his desk with a pale face and un - seeing eyes and asking of him nothing, because he is and will always be dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus thinks about his father, and sometimes he finds himself glad that the man is dead. regulus thinks about his father, and most times he finds himself angry about everything that he never did. regulus thinks about his father, and usually he finds himself confused about everything he's ever known.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>but every tear and every smile is safe</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black is sixteen - years - and - eighty - three - days - old and he does not think that he could move from the middle of his bedroom floor if he tried. his forearm </span>
  <em>
    <span>burns</span>
  </em>
  <span> the same way it does when his mother screams and spits curses at him, when pain laces up and down his body and makes him unable to do much of anything but curl into his own body and scream and scream and scream until his throat is hoarse with the effort. he turns his head to the side, to stare at the locked door of his jail cell room -- he could get out, he knows ; he could crawl his way through the little space between what was once his older brother's room and his own and he could get out, but he doesn't. he barely has the energy to keep his eyes open, much less the ability to produce enough of the effort he would need to escape the wrath of his mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black looks down at the marking on his forearm and bites his lip so hard that he thinks it might start to bleed to keep from bursting into tears again -- does he have any tears left to cry anymore ? he isn't sure, but the pure fire in his arm blocks out everything else that he was thinking in the moment and his voice cracks with the effort of holding in his whimper of pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black is sixteen - years - and - eighty - three - days - old when he is put in front of the dark lord voldemort and a wand point is pressed into his skin and he watches in painful horror as the ink dances across his forearm until he is looking at a twisted snake being devoured by a skull. he does go to sleep that night, and he does get off of his bedroom floor.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>if you hold me in the silence</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>nobody can find us</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>let ' s decide to stay , we should ride the wave for now</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>just hold me in the silence</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>            regulus black doesn't find it in himself to protest when evan rosier ducks them into an empty corridor just before dinner on the first day back at school after the easter holiday and kisses him so hard that it hurts. he almost laughs when he pulls away and asks him, " what was that for, </span>
  <em>
    <span>l'amour </span>
  </em>
  <span>? "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>           his boyfriend tilts his head forward, which causes his bangs to brush along the top of regulus' head, and he's laughing when he says, " i missed you. " and, when regulus leans over and kisses him again, it's both to cut off the half - laugh that bursts out of evan's mouth and to tell him that he missed him, too, because he's never been very good at explaining himself with words. he likes to think by the way that there are fingers curling into his hair that he understands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>           and, if neither of the boys are seen at dinner that night, is it really much of anyone's business where they had been instead ?</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>nobody can find us</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>we don ' t have to go , we should mend our souls right now</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>here in the silence</span>
  </em>
  <span> )</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>           he is seventeen years old to the day when his house elf gets taken away by the dark lord voldemort for a ‘mission’ and returns three days later half dead. his eyes trail over the older wizard’s face -- voldemort is looking at him with almost a hint of disdain, and he has the sudden, inexplicable urge to roll his eyes. he can’t, he knows, because his forearm is burning just being in the mere presence of the man. regulus glances from voldemort to kreacher and back again and he says, “ thank you. “ before spelling the house elf to the kitchen pantry to rest and bidding the dark lord a good night.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>he spends the next few days after kreacher wakes up researching in the black family library about everything the elf tells him about what the dark lord had done. it takes him three - and - a - half weeks to figure out what a horcrux is, and twelve more to find where one of voldemort's is located. he presses his lips to the top of evan rosier's head when the other boy is fast asleep and he never comes back.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>( </span>
  <em>
    <span>here in the silence</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>here in the silence</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>here in the silence </span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>when regulus black is eighteen years and five months old, he drinks a cauldron filled with poison with all intentions of taking his last breath. his house elf begs and begs and begs him to stop, to </span>
  <em>
    <span>let kreacher drink the shell, master, kreacher deserves it more than master does, please, master, please</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he does not listen. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>it is the same way that he did not listen when he was fourteen and his older brother was frantically asking him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>come on, reggie! we can leave, we can go, don't you want to get away from here?</span>
  </em>
  <span> and, there is the same frantic look in kreacher's eyes that sirius had had then. his house elf is watching him get pulled under by a thousand long dead hands while he sobs and screams and begs and then, he is gone.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>it is the same way he did not listen when he was sixteen and his mother told him to keep quiet but he could not help the startled, pent - up sob that passed through his lips at the burning sensation on his left forearm. he heard her scream of </span>
  <em>
    <span>crucio </span>
  </em>
  <span>before the curse even hit his body, sending him to the floor with a ragged sound of torment. he thinks that he might be able to feel those </span>
  <em>
    <span>crucios</span>
  </em>
  <span> down here, everytime a new hand joins the ones that are pulling him down, down, down.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>it is the same way he did not listen just a few days ago when his boyfriend was wrapping his arms around regulus’ shoulders from behind and muttering into his hair, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you don’t have to go, do you?</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he had only laughed, turning around in evan’s arms and closing the rest of the small distance between them to press a kiss to the edge of his mouth and said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>i’ll be back this weekend, </span>
  </em>
  <span>mon amour</span>
  <em>
    <span>, don’t worry about it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
  <span>when regulus black is eighteen years old, as his body hits the bottom of a lake that he can no longer see the surface of, he stops fighting the urge to inhale and lets his mouth and his throat and his lungs fill with water. there are still hands, cold and dead and somehow still human looking, grasping at his clothes and pushing him deeper into the mud, and he really has to laugh when he thinks about how everything is finally, finally, silent.</span>
</p>
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